Extract from Ronald Reagan’s Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session at the University of Virginia, 16 Dec. 1988 [Quote]

The pursuit of science, the study of the great works, the value of free inquiry, in short, the very idea of the living the life of the mind–yes, these formative and abiding principles of higher education in America had their first and firmest advocate, and their greatest embodiment, in a tall,...

Extract from George H. W. Bush’s Remarks at the University of Virginia Convocation, 28 Sept. 1989 [Quote]

When he first charted the ground on which we gather today, there was just a field of grass, a horizon limited only by the blue mountains beyond. But Jefferson surveyed a horizon that no one else could see. He saw the graceful dome of the Rotunda, the elegance of the Lawn and its pavilions. He saw...

Extract from Esther B. Fein’s “Clamor in the East,” and Zdenek Janicek’s remarks after reading the Declaration of Independence to striking Polish workers, 27 Nov. 1989 [Quote]

Americans understood these rights more than 200 years ago ... We are only now learning to believe that we are entitled to the same rights.

Extract from Czechoslovakian President Vaclav Havel’s Address to the United States Congress, 21 Feb. 1990 [Quote]

When Thomas Jefferson wrote that governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, it was a simple and important act of the human spirit. What gave meaning to that act, however, was the fact that the author backed it up with his life. It was not...

Extract from David Remnick’s Interview with Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, 1 Aug. 1991 [Quote]

Gorbachev advisor Shakhnzarov ... keeps a copy of the Federalist Papers on his desk, and he says that both he and Gorbachev have read and admire Alexander Hamilton’s essay on the need for a federal taxation system ... But Russian republic Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev cites a different American...

Extract from Carl Sagan’s Remarks at the Independence Day Ceremony at Monticello, 4 July 1992 [Quote]

Jefferson was a childhood hero of mine, not because of his science, but because he, more than anybody else, was responsible for the spread of democracy throughout the world. And the idea, breath-taking, radical, revolutionary at that time—and some places in the world, it still is today—is that...

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